School Board Nominating Papers

Want to serve on the Providence School Board?  Applications are available now.  The deadline appears to be either  Nov. 9th or Nov. 12th (there is conflicting information on different sites….I’d plan on the 9th).
Here’s the official notice:
The School Board Nominating Process is underway. Please find relevant dates and information below.
School Board Nominating Commission:
Phoebe Salten, Chair
Dr. [...]

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Julia Steiny on Bumping

In the “credit where credit is due” department, it should be noted that the Sunday before our public meeting, Julia Steiny had a piece in the ProJo which prominently featured criticism of bumping. Steiny begins by noting that RI schools recently had a rather poor showing in the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores:
 In all [...]

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East Side Monthly on East Side Schools

Each month, ESPEC steering committee member Sam Zurier writes a column on education for the East Side Monthly. In the most recent (October) issue, Sam’s article is the cover story. It is a review of, and “report card” for, three East Side schools. excluding Nathan Bishop, of course. Also included is Classical High School, [...]

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Bumping Graphic

As noted in an earlier post, the process of “bumping”, by which each year many teachers of moved out of the jobs without regard to qualification or performance, was a major concern of attendees at last night’s meeting. The process that leads to bumping is complicated, and is closely tied to the budget process. [...]

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The Next Event

As you heard, if you attended last night’s meeting, we’re planning another event for next month:
East Side Public Education Coalition
Open public discussion
Thursday, Nov. 15.
7pm-9pm
Community Meeting Room, Rochambeau Branch of the Providence Public Library
The ESPEC steering committee is holding an informal gathering for those who would like to discuss ways in which we, as a [...]

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Last Night’s Forum

We had a great turnout for last night’s forum. Eighty-five to ninety people came to hear East Side members of the City Council and General Assembly answer questions from the audience about the future of Providence Public Education. Many thanks to our panelists for their willingness to appear and take questions.  ESPEC steering [...]

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Innappropriate Blog “Comments”

Several you have noticed that, occasionally, we get a fake “comment” here that turns out to be a link to some web site, typically pornographic.   I apologize that this has happened. The blog software tells me that it has blocked more than 15,000 of these, but some get through.I delete them when I see them, [...]

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Are Private High Schools Better than Public High Schools?

Thanks to Kiersten Marek over at kmareka.com for calling our attention to a new report from the Center on Educational Policy
This study, based on an analysis of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988-2000, finds that, once family background characteristics are taken into account, low-income students attending public urban high schools generally performed as well [...]

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Help Support our Teachers and Schools

We’re happy to spread the word about an exiting opportunity to contribute to education:  Donorschoose.org.  According to the press release from the Mayor’s office and School Department,  “Ordinary citizens and businesses of any size can visit this online marketplace (www.donorschoose.org) to donate to small, meaningful classroom projects and resource needs that have been submitted by [...]

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